Books: Fitzgerald Unfinished

(3 of 3)

With many a chuckle Critic Wilson used to tell a story about his friend. It is symbolic. In Baltimore Fitzgerald used to have an ardent fan. For some time they carried on a brisk and intelligent literary correspondence. Fitzgerald had never met the young man, thought he ought to have him over for supper. The Fitzgeralds were living then in their big, rather empty house at Rodgers Forge, Md. (Fitzgerald was a great-grandnephew of Francis Scott Key; an aunt of his father was Mary Surratt, hanged after the assassination of Lincoln). The house stands in big grounds with a drive that curves around through smooth lawns.

The Fitzgeralds waited supper as long as they could. Nobody came. They were having coffee when a car tore around the drive at 50 miles an hour. With a scream of brakes it tried to stop in front of the house, skidded, dug two big ruts in the perfect turf. Out tumbled a young man who staggered to the door. Fitzgerald opened it. Apparently the youth had been fortifying himself for hours for this ordeal. He teetered a moment, stared wildly at his host and said: "Mr. Fitzgerald, you have made me what I am today." Then he passed out cold on the doorsill.